Community digital-only news sites have shown growing vitality in National Headliner Awards entries as local print newspapers vanish.
We put particular emphasis on attracting entries for the 2025 awards from the smallest to the largest digital-only sites. Judges were delighted with the response.
From the tiniest start-up digital newsrooms to the larger, established and national ones, the devotion and quality of journalism is apparent.
But what gave us inspiration as we examined entries was the dedication of community news sites to reporting stories relevant and critical to their audiences.
Although many digital news providers are but a few years old, some entries produced a collective “wow!” from judges.
Consider The Baltimore Banner’s all-hands-on-deck coverage of the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse in March 2024 (see photo above), which won first place in this year’s competition in the online breaking news category. A Banner reporter was awakened by a middle-of-the-night phone call from a firefighter friend. The staff, many with sources from previous jobs in Maryland legacy media, went all-out all night – including the editor designing and updating the pages for the big story.
The Banner staff covered the collapse with all the passion of traditional newsrooms. Add the urgency of getting the news delivered dynamically, and you have coverage that well served the Baltimore-area community.
Entries this year also showed us the imagination and innovation of digital-only sites that focus on hot audience topics.
NJ Advance Media, which has morphed from the Star-Ledger newspaper in New Jersey (publishing in print ended in 2025) to nj.com, debuted My Group Chat last year.
In the newsletter and WhatsApp chat, Daysi Calavia-Robertson launched the daily discussion group for young people of color in the state.
In Michigan, Bridge Detroit in 2024 featured a City Council Notebook offering deep and transparent coverage of an important local legislative body in an era when city councils and town boards have gone uncovered because of media cutbacks.
And, in North Carolina, the Asheville Watchdog holds local government and institutions accountable with more depth than many legacy newsrooms ever offered.
These are all examples of remarkable community journalism that the National Headliner Awards honored this year.
The National Headliner Awards, which has been judging a wide variety of media for more than 90 years, added the category of “Best Independent Community/Local News Site” in 2024 to address this emerging facet of the industry. We will continue to search for fabulous examples of community news reporting, engagement and a comprehension of audience needs and desires.
It does not matter whether an organization has one reporter or dozens – we are interested in the standouts of the class.
Sites covering the news business are full of “woe is me” articles about the demise of newspapers and the future of journalism. While the concern is valid, judges at the National Headliner Awards have the privilege of witnessing the direction of local digital journalism and we have great hope for the future.
Neill Borowski, who spent 21 years as a reporter and manager at The Philadelphia Inquirer and later held news executive positions with The Press of Atlantic City and Gannett, is editor of 70and73.com, a website he owns that is dedicated to covering local news in southern New Jersey. He is also an adjunct professor of journalism at The College of New Jersey and leads National Headliner Awards judging of community websites.